Delilah is a voracious chewer.  Give her a beef bone and this dog will gnaw for hours.  Give her an antler and she’ll chew until her teeth bleed and you take it away. (FTR, I only did that once!)

What do you do with a dog that likes to chew, but can’t chew traditional bones or antlers?

For the longest time I used those big white bones that come filled with peanut butter or cheese.  I’d scrape the filling out and refill the bones with pumpkin, yogurt, Kefir or fruit and refill it and freeze it.

Until at Delilah’s annual check up in June when our vet told us that Delilah had a broken tooth.  At that point I switched her over to a frozen Kong.  Am I certain the bones were responsible for the broken tooth?  No.  No I’m not. But I’d rather not take a chance.

My poor girl, the tooth was definitely bothering her as the vet could see that plaque was beginning to build up around that tooth, which meant she was being careful not to chew on that side.  We scheduled her dental cleaning for August.  (Dentals book up fast in our practice.)

Then the routine blood work showed her liver levels were elevated so we did an ultrasound on her liver, which showed the liver was normal size, shape and texture.  We encountered a problem however with our credit card.  Wells Fargo sent us a new credit card in March, it had a substantial limit with nothing on it.  I activated the card and put it away for emergencies.  When the ultrasound and broken tooth came up, we figured, “good thing we have this card.”

Except it turns out we didn’t.

When we went to pay for Delilah’s ultrasound, the card was declined.  When Hubby called the bank he was told the account was closed for inactivity.  After the card was mailed to us and activated by me.  So there we were standing at the vet’s office with a $500 bill for an ultrasound and no way to pay it.  The vet’s office agreed to take a deposit from me and future payments, but couldn’t spot us the dental as well as the ultrasound, so poor Delilah’s dental had to be postponed.  Believe me when I tell you I felt horrible about this.

It took us a month or so, but we finally got the bill paid and rescheduled the dental for this past Tuesday.

Thankfully she only needed the one tooth pulled, but that tooth was so bad, it had a hole in it and when the Dr. probed it, pus came out.  My poor girl! When I first heard about her elevated liver levels I suspected the tooth.  However the office manager at our vet said typically one tooth is not going to cause elevated liver levels.  (Well time will tell on this one.)

Delilah did very well with the anesthesia and I picked her up around 5:00 pm.  I was warned she would probably be whiny and restless, but I fluffed it off.  It’s Delilah after-all, nothing phases her.

Until it does.

When I first saw her, I’m not really sure she even realized who I was.  After a few minutes of petting her and talking to her, she was ready to go.  She booked for the car and launched herself in.  Typically she stands in the car for the first couple of minutes but usually settles down quickly.  She rode the entire trip home going from window to window.  I went slowly, taking the back roads home and let her just be in the moment, at one with life.

Once we got home she went straight to the house, but then wasn’t sure what to do.  It was so hard to see her unsure of where to go and what to do with herself. 

 

 

She spent a couple of hours standing in the middle of room.  Just standing there.  Sometimes she would whine too.  It about broke me, because she’s so not a whiny dog.  But as the night wore on she became more and more like herself.

Yesterday morning on her walk, she was a bit more reserved than she usually is, but she responded to commands, looked for treats when appropriate and danced for her breakfast.

Yesterday afternoon I receive a package from the Holistic Vet (more on that in another post.)  Last night she ate some of the packing peanuts from the box.  

I’d say she’s feeling more like herself.